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In celebration of the former Commerce Avenue Chick-fil-A officially opening its new location on Vernon Road, the LaGrange-Troup County Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon cutting Thursday morning.

Josh Sells, store operator, said officially opening the restaurant felt surreal.

“There have been a lot of emotions. Last week, closing Commerce was emotional. I’ve been there for 12 years, and it was open for 27. There’s a lot of memories there, but to be here today is pretty surreal,” Sells said. “We are trying to take it all in right now and welcome in the positive change.

Sells said having the support of the community and longtime customers felt amazing.

“What we love about LaGrange is that when people are in need, they come to support. When we moved here, 12 years ago, that’s what we fell in love with. We saw this community rise up around people and take care of their own,” Sells said. “It’s been awesome to be here and I am grateful for the support of the community and those who came to celebrate with us today.

When the news hit of the prior location closing, many were upset and didn’t want the location to close.

Sells said they want to be able to provide great service and would have loved to keep the Commerce location open. However, both logistically and feasibly, it wasn’t in the plans for Chick-fil-A’s growth plan.

He said they considered many different options to deal with the traffic in an out of the restaurant — particularly the drive-thru — but they simply outgrew the location.

“Now, we have a facility that can handle the business that the Commerce location could not handle. We outgrew that building five years ago,” Sells said.

“We now have a state–of–the–art facility that can handle the business, take care of our team, whether it’s canopies with fans, so they don’t have to stand out in the heat or a break room where team members can go and enjoy the air conditioner that can be felt throughout the entire restaurant. I think our team our team feels really cared for now, which hopefully will mean that our guests will feel even more cared for because they have something to be proud of now.”

Chick-fil-A Hills &Dales is located at 2110 Vernon Road.